


Detectives VS. The Homosapien's Agenda

by clickingkeyboards



Category: Murder Most Unladylike Series - Robin Stevens
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Crushes, F/F, First Kiss, Fluff, Implied Sexual Content, M/M, Mild Sexual Content, Mystery Detectives, Obliviousness, Secret Crush, Teen Crush
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-11-30
Updated: 2019-12-25
Packaged: 2021-02-26 04:34:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 9,283
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21617683
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/clickingkeyboards/pseuds/clickingkeyboards
Summary: The Wells & Wong Detective Society is launching an investigation into George Mukherjee and Alexander Arcady, believing them to be in love. To mirror this development, the Junior Pinkertons are launching an investigation into Daisy Wells and Hazel Wong, believing them to be in love.A compilation of the oneshots from the '100 ways to say "I love you"' prompt list by p0ck3tf0x on Tumblr that are set in the same high school AU.
Relationships: Alexander Arcady/George Mukherjee, Daisy Wells/Hazel Wong
Comments: 4
Kudos: 36





	1. "look both ways."

**Author's Note:**

  * For [celestialskies (littlebirdrocks)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/littlebirdrocks/gifts).



**BEANIE**

I think I have noticed something.

In the library, Kitty and I are watching Brooklyn Nine-Nine, sat on the comfortable blue seats in the corner by the Carnegie 2018 display, while Lavinia sits on the ground at our feet and plays cards with some girls from another class in the Sixth Form.

Beside the creative writing display are two of my best friends, Daisy Wells and Hazel Wong. As most people outside of Deepdean & Weston don’t know who Daisy and Hazel are (except for the world of true crime), I’ll explain who they are.

Daisy is a genius but pretends that she is not, and she plays on the hockey team, her beautiful blonde hair bouncing around her head at all times, ever-so-English eyes sparkling. Although she pretends that she is not a genius to all of the students and teachers, she scores 100% in every assignment despite playing traunt from many of her lessons and never turning in a piece of homework. She is revered and admired by those younger than us, proffered gifts and chocolates, despite how outwardly she displays her punk persona. It could not look more like Daisy is a dealer of some sorts: she sports a blonde undercut that’s purple underneath (which shows through in a way that everybody thinks is beautiful) and wears high-heeled black boots, her blazer is littered with non-regulation badges, and patches covered in swear-words are sewn to her bag. 

Hazel is on the chess team and everybody knows that she is an incredible genius, though much more timid than her best friend in all the world (who is Daisy Wells, in case you were unaware). She is a genius heading for Oxbridge, glittering with qualifications, music gradings, volunteer work and out-of-school commitments.

The two of them have found their ‘person’ in each other and will doubtless be by each other’s sides for the rest of their lives. They’re whispering to each other over a deep pink casebook, used for one of their smaller mysteries that does not involve murder. They’re glancing over to the boys sat diagonally opposite to them, pointing at them and down again at their casebook.

Who sits diagonally opposite them? Next to the Student Favourites display is George Mukherjee and Alexander Arcady, huddling over George’s book of unsolved mysteries. For those two don’t know and don’t understand how significant those names are, allow me to fill you in.

George is the resident pretty-boy of Deepdean & Weston while still being an absolute genius and the head of the Academic Decathlon team for our school (which Daisy, Hazel, and Alexander are also on). It’s rumoured that he has 'slept with' several of the supposedly straight boys on the various sports teams. That doesn’t include Alexander (I’m privately surprised).

Alexander is the All-American star pitcher of the cricket team, rising in the leagues and famous for the strength of his throwing arm. Other rumours that bubble around him (but don’t seem to affect him) are the whispers that he’s stayed stereotypical of his social standing in school and has fallen hopelessly in love with (and had frisky drunken nights with) hot prom royalty. I do not want to add to the whispers but I (once again, privately) believe that the new love interest doesn’t sport a dress and tiara, but a tuxedo and a crown.

“Look both ways!” I say, jabbing Kitty in the arm. “Look here and look there.”

Looking up from her phone, Kitty peers out with curious blue eyes at the students I’m gesturing to. “What is it, Beans?” she asks.

“See there! Look how Hazel is looking at Daisy as she goes on one of her genius tirades.”

It’s true. Hazel’s gaze is reverent, adoring, and directed at Daisy, who is oblivious. As Alexander explains his take on the Black Dahlia, complete with sweeping gestures and halfway decent approximations of accents, George’s look is fond, a smile tugging up one side of his lips and his eyes bright in such an innocently adoring way.

“What do you think?” I ask, eager as I elbow her for her opinion, jostling her phone.

With a roll of her eyes, Kitty says, “What do you want me to say? Beans, isn’t it obvious? Daisy and Hazel are smitten with each other, we’ve known that for months, if not years!”

“I know that!” I grumble. I’ve known that for months. I may have realised much later than the others but I am not _that_ slow. “No, look at George and Alexander! George is _glowing_ at him.”

She grabs my shoulder rather violently. “You think?”

“I _know_.”

* * *

**HAZEL**

“Do you think that it’s a good idea to investigate George and Alexander?” I ask Daisy in politics, leaning over to whisper in her ear while Miss Lappet drones on about an essay the two of us already know how to do.

“Shush!” she says, slapping my hand. “It’s a perfect case to investigate and I am simply so _bored_. Nothing has happened since… oh, summer!”

“Oh, _summer_?” I reply with as much sarcasm and I can force into my voice. “That was about four weeks ago, Daisy! We should be able to go four weeks without mystery.”

She takes my hand and squeezes it, and I swear that sparks shoot up my arm at the contact, our palms pressing together. I am terrified that she’ll notice how much I’m sweating. However, she says nothing and I breathe a small sigh of belief. “We’ve never been normal, have we, Hazel? Our friendship is built on the fact that we both despite the everyday.”

Before I can respond to the unusually heartfelt statement, she jerks my arm and points with the other hand towards where George and Alexander sit beside us on the back row. They must sit in the back corner together because George finds the amount of sound less overwhelming when he is sat in the corner and can survey where the clamour is coming from, and Alexander must sit with somebody he knows.

“George,” Alexander whispers, his legs hammering up and down under the table, showing how worried he is about… something. “George!”

George, fixated on Miss Lappet, turns his head and snaps, “What is it, Alex?”

Alexander flinches.

“I’m sorry,” George says.

Although he is turned away, Alexander must pull some sort of face that displays his absolute worry. I know this because George gasps and says, “Oh, _Alex_! Is this alright?” The ‘this’ he is referring to is him taking Alexander’s hand, threading their fingers together and moving his thumb over his hand to calm him.

“Yes. I feel… not okay. I don’t feel awful anymore.”

Daisy elbows me to write it all down but I already have my dark pink notebook out, scribbling down everything that’s going on.

* * *

After RP (which I have with Alexander after politics), Alexander pulls me aside and says, “Hazel, I need to tell you about something.”

“You didn’t murder anyone, did you?” I ask, putting my textbook in my bag. When I look up, his eyes are twinkling at me and he’s on the verge of a chuckle. “Oh, so if you did murder someone, you’re happy about it.”

He bursts out laughing after that comment, leaning heavily on my desk and bowing his head to his chest. “ _Hazel_!” he says with a wheeze. “No! It’s something… not murder-serious, normal-teenager-serious.”

“Go on?” I ask, zipping up my bag and walking out of the classroom by his side. We both stayed to talk to our teacher about the possibility of being allowed to take our end-of-unit tests on another day because we’re bust with SWAT. I wasn’t going to ask but he seemed to want to take as long as possible, perhaps to avoid meeting George in the corridor.

Perhaps I’m imagining what I want to.

That is, until he tells me what’s wrong.

“You know those rumours about me?”

Thinking that someone has been irritating him about them again, I reply with a sympathetic tone, “Oh, those ridiculous ones about you having a drunken night with hot prom royalty? I can’t believe people still believe that!”

He awkwardly rubs the back of his neck and a blotchy blush rises onto his face. I realise what he’s going to say before he opens his mouth. “Holy shit! They’re _real_ ? Alex, you _did_ that? When? It’s a rumour that spawned over the summer, who on earth were you with over the su— _oh_.”

This sudden realisation hits me hard while Alexander awkwardly chuckles. “I said _nothing_ , Hazel. You could be completely imagining everything you’ve just said.”

“And I’m the Princess of Kowloon!” I say, quoting one of George’s favourite things to say to racist pricks. “You… you had a ‘frisky drunken night’ with…”

“You can say it.” He nods with pursed lips, eyes looking everywhere but me.

“With _George_ ? George _Mukherjee_ ? SWAT team ambassador, resident pretty-boy, the person who is rumoured to have shagged most of the football team? _Your best friend_?”

He winces, snapping his elastic band against his wrist. “I take that back, it hurts when you say it aloud.”

I pause. “Does he remember?”

Alexander pulls a face that is almost… pained. “No…” he draws out, wincing again as if it hurts to say. “Or at least he doesn’t want me to know that he remembers.”

The two of us know how George and alcohol operate together. We investigate at parties, you see. It wouldn’t do for anyone to get blackout drunk (and I don’t drink at all). When we aren’t investigating, George will drink enough that he stumbles slightly and is a little less uptight. He would never drink so much that he couldn’t remember what he did under the influence of it.

“You know what?” I say, drumming my fingers on the strap of my bag. “I think this: he remembers but doesn’t think you do, and you remember but don’t think that he does.”

Alexander pauses. “Hazel,” he says in a rather upright voice. “If you are right, I will _kick_ myself.”

“Not if I get a head start,” I tell him, and hightail it to the canteen. 

* * *

**DAISY**

George and I discuss crushes as if holding a diplomatic meeting. “The way you go about it is simple,” George says, hands steepled before his face, elbows resting on the table. “You assess whether or not she has the potential to like you, based on her sexuality, previous crushes, current relationship status, and the likelihood of her being read for a relationship. Then you remove yourself from the situation so you may sit back and assess her behaviour to deduce whether or not she likes you back.”

“Back?” I reply, indignant. “Who says I like her, Mukherjee?”

He gives me a practised ‘are you shitting me?’ look and I square up against him, not allowing him one inch of ground. “Daisy Wells,” he says, tapping the table in front of him with one, slender finger, “if I could shake you without being snapped at by Twitting, I would. You are in love and there is no denying that.”

“ _Love_ ?” I say, though my ears burn most uncharacteristically. Perhaps… _well._ You see, I am not supposed to love Hazel Wong. My family does not deal well with having homosexual children. My brother is a prime example and George knows that better than most: after all, my brother’s sexual relations with _George’s_ brother are what made the front page of several newspapers.

WELLS FAMILY DISGRACED. 

As if we weren’t already.

(As an aside, just you try and make eye contact with somebody after a three-day weekend in which pictures of your brother and his brother dressed less-the-modestly and in a less-than-innocent position have been emblazoned in every paper under the sun, including the Sun.)

However, I _do_ love Hazel Wong. Simply put, she makes me do everything I am not supposed to. I have fallen for her personality, her loud and raucous laugh, the way she spins in circles when she is happy, how her eyes are bright with the thrill of a lead in the middle of a tough investigation, and how intensely and passionately she falls into absolutely everything.

I have been putting myself in danger for Hazel Wong since I caught sight of her glaring hard at me on a hockey pitch when we were twelve, and she has been getting into trunks for me for only one hour and twenty-seven minutes less than that.

We have been crossing oceans, climbing drainpipes, climbing in trunks, hanging off roofs, hiding behind mummy cases, and stepping onto stages for each other for five years. We’ve coughed blood, witnessed stabbings, thrown up side by side, lost family, been almost torn apart, come out, fallen in love (with other people and perhaps each other), seen arsenic poisoning in action, and pretended to murder each other fifteen different times (crime scene re-enactments).

We’ve done everything but kiss.

I may like to change that.

“Alright. I concede that I like her but not that I love her. But…” I pause and lean forward, a teasing smile on my face. “I have a question for you about those ridiculous rumours that are not so ridiculous after all.”

You see, I’ve developed a theory. I believe that the rumours of George more or less bedding half of the football team are not entirely untrue. This is mostly based on how I’ve noticed the footballers react to George’s generally flirtatious personality while we’re detecting; he can flirt information out of the straightest of men when he wants to. They all flush and go red and act like they’re disgusted by it. I hold this up against something else often: the rumours that Alexander had a drunken rendezvous after prom last summer. Who says that said prom royalty cannot sport a tuxedo and a crown?

George’s momentary horror is replaced by a smirk that is directed at me as he looks over my shoulder.

Chilly hands thread into my hair and Hazel, standing on her toes, leans over me, her hair hanging down in front of her face and our noses nearly touching.

I feel as if I have been set alight.

“Hazel,” I say, more breathless than intended. “Hello.”

I can feel George’s eyes on me. They say ‘I told you so’.

Hazel sits down beside me, chattering about her politics lesson, but I can barely pay attention for studying her. It’s awful but true. Her eyes are simply so bright, her lips are stretched so wide by a smile, and they look so soft I could kiss them there and then.

Panting (he was clearly racing Hazel), Alexander runs in and punches Hazel’s arm. “Cheat!” he exclaims.

“Sore loser,” she retorts.

Sitting down beside George, Alexander’s entire body relaxes at once. “George.” He says the word like a prayer. 

I watch them lock eyes and I know that I am right. “Alex,” he says, carrying the syllables on a sigh of relief.


	2. “i’m sorry. i didn't mean to.”

**HAZEL**

On Wednesday, George accosts me outside of English Language. “Wong!” he says in an urgent hiss, so different from his languid London drawl. “Can I have your ear for a moment?”

“Who did you kill?” I ask, looping my arm through the one he offers out. “Was it Alexander? I didn’t see him walk past out of drama.”

With a snort, he says, “Ah, yes, because Alex isn’t here, it means that his best friend brutally murdered him.”

“I never said brutally!”

“Alex is in the Support Unit.” The Support Unit is a part of our school for pastoral things and the San. The specific part George is referring to is what we call The Den, where students with anxiety, autism, issues with sound, and anything you can name go. “That prick of a drama TA accosted Alex to perform his monologue to her until he had a panic attack.”

I roll my eyes. George, Alexander, and Daisy, all have a passionate hatred for this TA, which means I also hate her by association. “Oh, of course she did. Barny should give her a lecture about it.”

“I bloody _hope_ she does. Twitting may be terrifying but nothing is scarier than Barny’s ‘I’m not mad, just disappointed’ face.”

“Anyway!” I bump my shoulder against his. “What did you need me for?”

He sighs, long and drawn-out. “You know those dreadful rumours that swirl about me?”

I swallow a gasp. _Shit_. He isn’t going to tell me what Alex told me just yesterday, is he? “Yes? The ones about you bedding half of the football team?”

He snorts. “When you put it like that, Wong, it makes me sound like the worst sort of deviant! Really, it’s only Gallager, Fletcher and TJ, all before we did out GCSE exams at all. Two of them don’t even play football.”

“ _Otto_ Gallagher?” I blurt as I gawk. “I had no idea, he’s the only one who hasn’t said anything!”

“Neither have Fletcher and Thomas Jenkins. They have only been swept up in the rumours surrounding their teammates. The others like adding to my pretty-boy reputation and it helps. Furthermore, _that_ only happened with Gallagher. Drunkenly making out with somebody does not constitute as bedding them.”

With a bad taste in my mouth — it is a horrid mental image — I ask, “How many of those… encounters were related to investigating?”

Daisy and George spend their lives kissing people because of cases. Alexander has only done it once and that was to get Clementine Delacroix off of him. I never have and never wish to.

“Fletcher and TJ. I’m unaware if either of them actually recall it. Gallager was because… well, myself behaving like a normal teenager, I suppose.”

I cast him a look. “We don’t act like that often enough.”

“Like what?”

“Normal.”

He squeezes my arm. “No… I suppose we do not. Anyhow, relating to that rumour is my issue: it is not only the football team. Oh, Hazel, don’t look so aghast. It isn’t as bad as it sounds. You see, if take my reputation for being the prom royalty for experimenting and questioning sportsmen, and hold it up against the exact wording of the rumours that swirl about Alex…”

I have to pretend to be shocked, and I privately thank The Rue for my acting skills. “You’re joking!” I exclaim, my eyes wide. It is shocking, even if you are hearing it for the second time. Running out of things to say already, I borrow the phrasing I used in yesterday’s conversation. “You… you… you and _Alexander_ ? Alexander _Arcady_ ? star pitcher of the cricket team, resident All-American heartthrob, the person rumoured to have fallen for prom royalty? _Your best friend_?”

He draws his face into a mask of indifference. “Are you taking issue, Wong?”

“No!” I withdraw my arm to grab his shoulder. “That is not it at all! I was just astonished at… well, how it is _true_.”

He raises an eyebrow at me. “Now, to turn to tables on you, dear Hazel Wong—”

Oh no. Oh _no_ . The very thing I have been twisting myself in knots trying to avoid. I should not like her and I wish that I did not more than I have wished anything before. I have prayed to the gods I do not believe in to try and rid myself of my crush, of the sparks that fly unchecked across my skin at contact, of the daydreams I should be having about _boys_ that instead see Daisy dancing through my imagination.

Since I was twelve, I have believed that the want to be close to Daisy was how everybody experienced friendship, until Ah Lan — a close friend of my family who is two years younger than me and lives in my home of Hong Kong — laughed at my attempt to help him describe a friendship for a piece of creative writing. “That is not describing friendship!” he exclaimed to me in Cantonese. “That is love. Where did you learn that?”

After a pause, he realised and crowed my name. “英!”

Apprehensive, I replied, “Yes?”

“It’s Daisy. You are in love with Daisy.” He told me this in English, then in Cantonese, then in his heavily-accented English once again.

Ah Lan was elated.

I was terrified.

If only I could tear off my skin and step out of it, into the skin of a blonde English girl who falls in love with blond English (or American) boys.

I should very much like to tear off all my skin, even if it did expose the fact that I am all _wrong_ underneath. If I was bruised and bleeding, perhaps it would distract my family from the utter infatuation for my best friend that glows unchecked from under my skin.

Perhaps my crush would seep out with the blood.

“Hazel?” George says, and I blink through tears — when did they appear? I cannot be certain but they are blurring my vision, so I am unable to see — to see him standing in front of me, one hand gripping my arm and the other on my cheek, catching a tear with his finger. “Hazel, dear, can you breathe?”

“No,” I gasp out, finding that it catches in my throat when I try to speak. “I can’t— George, I can’t— I can’t _breathe_ —”

For a moment, I watch him flash his eyes about in panic. George does not do emotions, finding them a tangled web of things he does not understand. While Daisy doesn’t either, she knows how to deal with _my_ emotions. I imagine that he’s looking about for her. 

“ _Help_ —”

I only ever cry for help when I feel as if I am about to die. 

With one hand, George’s takes my own and places it on his chest. “There. Feel my breathing, Hazel? Follow how I breathe, alright?”

I try to breathe with him but I hiccup and swear and it makes me furious. “I’m— I’m so–orry!”

“No, it’s alright, you’re doing well. Breathe with me again?”

I manage to shudder in a breath not wrought with tears and after that, several more. At first, my throat aches with the force of the breaths but after that it changes, improves, relaxes.

When I can breathe again without aid, I slump against George. “I’m sorry,” I say. “I didn’t mean to.”

“No, don’t apologise!” he says, circling my shoulders with his arms. “Now, let us go and find our detectives.”

* * *

**DAISY**

Alexander is driving me insane.

I followed his path to The Den after drama while George went to find Hazel. It was better that way. The ever-observant George has picked up the minutest hints of Alexander acting _odd_. His starts and jumps have been coming in fits and starts more regular than usual and it is obvious that George is the cause. He’s hurt by this — I can tell — and it’s ridiculous that he is.

George Mukherjee is an idiot.

It is obvious to me that Alexander is gone over him. His bursts of worry are also taken over by bubbles of joy, where he whirls with laughter and smiles non-stop and doesn’t seem to mind that his sleeves are too short.

I messaged Hazel in the middle of drama.

_He’s in love._

_Which one?_ came the reply, followed by a link to the Little Mermaid song called ‘She’s In Love’.

_Both. Mostly Alexander. George is better at hiding it._

That’s true. George’s only suggestions that he might feel more than his rotation of four Alexander-related emotions (which are exasperation, fondness, happiness, and happiness-dialled-to-eleven) are the involuntary ones. His pupils widen and his eyes brighten. He can tell Alexander’s footsteps when he walks into the room. When Alexander's voice careens into the room with its grating accent, he turns to listen at once.

Naturally, I have to make sure Alexander is less clueless so this case gets less painful to spectate.

It’s not a job I want to be doing. Alexander is irritating as shit. 

“Alexander?” I call as I step into The Den.

Miss Lappet (the teacher minding the room) shoots me a disapproving glare.

“I need to make sure he’s alright,” I say, putting on my best innocent voice that doesn’t work as well as it did when the underneath of my hair wasn’t purple.

She gestures tiredly to one of the beds on the ground.

When I peer over the partition, I see Alexander worrying a hand along the hem of his white long-sleeved t-shirt, his blue waterproof that he wears inside (it’s very cold) discarded at his feet. “Alright?” I ask.

He starts. “Daisy! what are you doing here?”

“Come to check on you,” I say, sitting on the carpet. “Against all my better judgement, I give a shit about you.”

Before I can say anything else, Alexander’s touched smile morphs into an astonishingly George-like smirk. “I’ve a question.”

“Right.”

I know exactly what he’s about to say.

“What’s with you and Hazel recently? You look at her like she’s made from all the stars in the sky, and would pull down the moon for her if she asked.”

I do not look at Hazel as if she is all the stars in the sky.

She _is_ all the stars in the sky, compressed into one perfectly flawed person with the universe hidden in dark eyes.

“I do not.”

The door opens before he can protest, and Hazel’s sweet voice rings out. “Daisy?”


	3. "try some."

**GEORGE**

Even though Hazel does not have a pass for The Den, the teachers do not mind her being in there with all of us. As Deepdean & Weston is a dreadfully loud, it means that we spend out lunchtimes in The Den, usually discussing mysteries over cookies.

Yesterday, we were detectives as we covered the confession Avery Blackwater made and the false date on Amal Chanda’s forged arrest warrant. Today, we are normal teenagers as we whisper of the Year 10 students caught smoking on the field and the rumours of Amina El Magrhrabi being something other than straight.

“She _radiates_ lesbian energy,” Daisy says, studying her half-chipped black nail polish. “I mean, have you _seen_ her dress sense?”

“She also check you out,” Hazel adds, a glimmer in her eyes. “Especially during hockey matches.”

“She _does_ ?” In an instant, Daisy recovers herself. “I mean— how do you know _that_ , Watson? You looking there yourself?”

I freeze — why did Daisy have to say that? — before bursting out laughing. Alex and Hazel follow, so it doesn’t look odd when Hazel is red-faced even after we’ve caught our breaths. As we laugh, Alex leans his head on my shoulder and I stiffen as I try not to jerk in surprise.

You see, I am in love with Alexander Arcady.

It’s an awful cinematic cliche that would make me sick if I read a book, a story about a pretty-boy genius of a teenage boy hopelessly in love with his best friend of five years.

Perhaps that is why the one regret I have is so enormous it allows for no other: the night of prom.

* * *

For once, there was no mystery on prom night. Daisy whirled and danced with everybody, Hazel was amicable and congratulating everyone on surviving school, and I was forced to twirl Clementine Decroix around the room — prom queen and prom king, you see. When the more official part of prom came to an end, and we were all dancing and drinking and laughing, Alex and I sat side by side, and we talked and reminisced and _drank_.

Hazel dragged Daisy back to Bertie and Harold’s flat at the end of the night — for Felix and Lucy would fall into their chillingly strict shouting if they saw Daisy drunk — so Alex and I stumbled back to where I live with my parents, who were on holiday.

Alexander Arcady is straight, I have to stress. Unless, apparently, he is on the cusp of being _incredibly_ drunk.

The thing I regret? I gave in.

I allowed him to kiss me, caress me, thread his hands through my hair.

When his hands reached here, there, everywhere, I did not protest.

Five years of _wanting_ a touch from Alex roiled up to meet our kiss.

I was weak.

* * *

When I woke up — with nothing on, if I must mention — I was confused. I was in my room, which was not too unusual, but when I turned to my left I almost fell from the bed.

_What happened last night?_

Alex was stretched out next to me and when it occurred to me what it must mean, I did what I never do: I panicked. Dazed confusion was shaken from my head as a realisation rocketed around my mind.

_Alexander and I had sex._

After the moment of utter horror, I grabbed my underwear and trousers from the ground and pulled them on, swept up all the other pieces of my tux, and crept down the stairs.

Once downstairs, I wriggled my way into my shirt and distressed myself to a suitable degree before discarding my jacket and everything else on the ground as if I had shrugged it off before falling asleep.

I fished out my phone from my jacket pocket and glanced down at the notifications. All there was on the screen was a lot of messages from Clementine’s prom-planning group chat.

Oh _no_.

I leapt to my feet and began to pace the length of the room. What if someone noticed? How close did Alex and I act last night?

The first hundred or so messages were the photos Clementine and the others took that night.

The final few (hundred) photos were various people in the room. One… one of myself and Alex. _Several_ of myself and Alex. The two of us are draped all over each other in the photos, his feet in my lap, my hand in his fair, his hand slid down the back of my collar, my arm around his waist.

I suddenly recalled all of last night with such force that I had to stagger back into my father’s armchair.

The pounding headache beat inside my skull but I squinted teary eyes to look at the group chat once again. Thankfully, the other photos of the that night — everyone draped over _everyone_ — obscured Alexander and I being… a little more than friends.

I declared to myself in my mind, _That is the last time I ever drink vodka._

There were footsteps on the stairs and Alex — half-dressed in his trousers and a half-buttoned dress shirt — opened the door. “George!” he said, a grin on his face. “Lord, what happened last night? I don’t remember anything beyond Hazel being dared to try a shot of vodka!”

“Uh—” _Think, George, think. It’s a blessing that he doesn’t remember._ “We stumbled back here and you passed out in _my_ bed.” I made sure to force a joking note in my voice, as if I was irritated by him taking my bed as opposed to shocked that we shared it. “I came to get a drink, intending to go and sleep in Harold’s old room, but I passed out on the couch after getting dressed down to about what you see here.”

I gesture down to my mussed appearance and Alex slowly nodded. “Ah. That sounds about right. I can’t imagine _why_ I got totally undressed. I woke up stark naked!”

“You were _drunk_ to the imaginary heavens, Alex! Why question what you did when you were drunk?”

He snorted. “I suppose that’s true.” He set his head in his hands. “Remind me to never drink again.”

I made for the fridge with my phone in my hand, thanking Clementine in the group chat for her hangover-curing concoction recipe.

I noted the wine on one of the shelves and tugged it down, brandishing it at Alex jokingly. “Wine?”

“ _Fuck_ no!”

We laughed then, until we felt as if we should burst at the seams, and all returned to normal.

* * *

“I think he’s off imagining _Otto Gallagher_!”

The unfamiliar voice jerks me back to normal, and I look over to see Amina El Maghrabi peering down into my face, shoulders hunched in laughter. “Oh!” I blink. “I— sorry, Amina! Away with the fairies.”

“Not like you to daydream,” Hazel says, and though her smile is kind, I see her posture tighten when Amina looks to Daisy.

“I’ll have you know that he does it more often than he lets on!”

Alex’s voice startles me more than Amina’s did. When he speaks, I hear the words he said on prom night all over again.

_“Please, George. I swear I’ll remember this tomorrow.”_

“Yes,” I reply in my usual cynical tone that comes to me as naturally as breathing, “when it’s two in the morning, Hazel’s writing up case notes, Daisy’s watching Buzzfeed Unsolved, and you’re sat at the foot of my bed watching _Pride and Prejudice_.”

Amina snorts. “You’re the weirdest group.”

“Hey,” Alex says softly, bumping my arm with his own.

I jump as if struck and he looks at me, concerned. “George! What’s wrong with you today?”

Now is as good a time as any, I suppose. I can pass it off as an explanation for my jumpiness.

“Daisy,” I say, looking to her and grinning, “did Bertie message you?”

“No?” She despises not being in the know, and she snatches her phone from her pocket to look. “God, he’s awful at remembering to tell me shit.”

“Ha!” I hold out my phone. “Asian people are organised.”

A snort comes from Hazel, who covers her mouth with one hand. “Agreed there. Daisy used to say that she thought we’d never _heard_ of dirt in Hong Kong!”

“Better than Egypt!”” Amina says, sitting down beside Hazel and tucking up her long legs onto the seat. “Everything is _dusty_ all the time!”

“Try America,” says Alexander, his natural good nature coming back as he leans forward, supporting himself with forearms across his knees, laughing and loud and red in the face. I live for him looking so happy. “You can’t go ten minutes without seeing an American flag or some replica bald eagle, and you could drive for _hours_ and still be in California!”

“Americans,” Daisy begins as she looks up from my phone, clearly having read the message, “think a hundred years is a long time, while the British a hundred miles is a long way.”

The observation is said with such dry humour that we all snort with laughter again, and I accept my phone back to see that Daisy messaged Harold something.

On Sunday, Harold sent me a message.

_Bub._

_H._

_I have a proposition for you!_

_I’m not killing someone for you, H!_

_You’re so dramatic. No, Bertie and I came top of the class and he suggested that, to celebrate, we drag you, Daisy, and your detectives to a nice place for dinner next weekend. Thoughts?_

_Let me think… no._

_Come ON._

_I’m joking, of course I’ll come and bring my ‘detective’. His name is Alexander._

_He’s still YOUR detective, bub!_

Fast-forward through several conversations about where our father keeps the spare house keys, my grandmother’s macaroons, and something about Donald Trump, and Daisy has messaged him this enlightening phrase: _Harold, please tell my brother to go and fuck himself for forgetting to tell me about the dinner we’re apparently having. —Daisy_

“Hazel,” Daisy says, turning to her, “we’re going to dinner with Harold and Bertie tonight.”

It’s funny how she doesn’t give Hazel a choice. I know Hazel will go along with it anyway.

I don’t miss how Amina reacts to those names. “Oh. I’ve heard of them.”

Daisy draws out her fingers in a box, as if framing imaginary words. “‘WELLS FAMILY DISGRACED’, perhaps?”

The awkwardness is palpable. “Yes, that might be it.” After a beat, Amina rummages in her bag and pulls out a tupperware container. “I made cookies,” she said, “try some!”

There is a tone in her voice as she speaks to Daisy that could be interpreted as something like admiration. Hazel tenses and I notice the anxiety from earlier coming back.

“These are amazing!” Daisy says around her mouthful. “ **Try some** , Hazel!”

And she feeds the cookie into Hazel’s slightly-open mouth.


	4. "well, what do you want me to do?"

**BERTIE**

“You forgetful moron!” Harold announces the moment I walk into our flat.

“Good afternoon to you too, my love,” I reply, setting down my bag and untying my shoelaces. “What have I done this time?”

He emerges from where his face was hidden behind an open cabinet door, an enormous grin on his face. “How was work, my love?” he asks, walking over and offering out a hand to help me up from the ground.

“Alright. I think we’re going to win this case or at least lose gracefully,” I reply, accepting his hand up and leaning in to kiss him once I'm on my feet. “Why am I a moron, exactly?”

His arms are still around my neck, elbows on my shoulders around hands clasped behind my head. “You forgot to tell Daisy about going out to dinner tonight.”

 _Shit_.

“Did I?” I ask in a weak voice, now remembering the fact that I had put my phone in my pocket after telling Harold that I absolutely would send the message.

He suddenly bursts into laughter, bowing his head into my chest with his shoulders heaving up and down. “You are the most forgetful young man I have ever met,” he announces.

“Did she message you or something?” I ask, tugging him over to the sofa. He makes me lay down with him, myself with my back pressed up against his chest.

“My brother was talking to her about it and she was _astonished_ that she hadn't been told,” he says, doing an imitation of Daisy's voice on the word 'astonished'. “Daisy messaged me from his phone when he showed her the message I sent.”

“What did she say?” I ask, knowing that my sister was doubtless less than charming.

Fishing out his phone, he dramatically puts on a high-class Daisy-ish voice and reads out, “Harold, please tell my brother to go and fuck himself for forgetting to tell me about the dinner we’re apparently having.”

I snort. “How delightful. What time is it?”

“Half five?” he says, sighing and wrapping his arms around my torso. “We have time. We don’t have to get ready yet.”

I feel his head bow against my back and his breathing evens out.

* * *

**ALEXANDER**

It is seven o’ clock and George will not put on his shoes.

I sound like the babysitter of a belligerent toddler; allow me to start again.

George’s father has flown to a medical conference in Paris and George’s mother is with her, meaning that I traipsed over to his house about an hour ago to rifle through his ties and steal his shoe polish.

We were supposed to be there five minutes ago but, before we left, I noticed George looking uncomfortable.

“What is it?” I asked, and he withdrew from my hand on his shoulder.

“Textures,” he says, and I internalise a groan. It is the only thing he gets freaked out about that irritates me, simply because I cannot do anything: when the feeling of something touching him begins to freak him out.

“Put on your shoes.”

“No.”

“George! We’ll be late.”

“I don’t want to be late.”

“Then put on your shoes!”

“No!”

“Well, what do you want me to do?”

“If you would kindly _fuck off_ , that would be fantastic.”

Now I am sat on the sofa, jackhammering my leg up and down and texting Harold because George will not have me trying to comfort him.

 _Alexander, where are you? And do you know where my brother is?_ he messaged me two minutes ago.

_I’m at your house._

_Why?_

_I went over to steal one of his ties and their shoe polish but he’s in one of those states where texture freaks him the hell out._

_Oh, that’s not good. Here, I know what you should go. Dress down to whatever level he is (like, take off your jacket or whatever) and sit where he is (against the door, if I know my brother). After a bit, put on your blazer, do your tie, do whatever he needs to do to complete getting ready. George is a mimic so he’ll follow what you do._

_Thanks, man. I owe you one._

I chuck down my phone and take off my blazer, shocks, and shoes, and go to sit down beside George, against the door. “Hey,” I say to him. “What do you reckon Daisy will wear?” As I say this, I start to put on my socks.

“I don’t know,” he replies thoughtfully. Just as Harold said, his hands mirror my own and he starts to copy me. “I don’t know what she dresses in when she isn’t trying to seduce some middle-aged man for the case.”

“Perhaps Hazel will be convinced to wear a Hong Kong dress.”

“They’re called cheongsams,” he says, brushing a hand back through his hair before automatically going to put on his shoes.

After a few more snatches of conversation, he gets to his feet and — still looking uncomfortable, as if something is crawling on his skin — picks up his jacket.

“Wait.” He turns to me. “You sneaky prick!”

I get to my feet and hold out a hand to help him up. “What do you mean?” I ask with my mouth curled into a cheeky smile.

“Idiot,” he says with his head shaking fondly. “Let me go and find my noodle.”

The noodle is this silicone stimming toy that Harold procured for George and Daisy off some internet website. They’re the quietest thing for stimming ever and I’ve stolen it occasionally.

When I pick up my phone, there’s a reply to my message, _Thanks, man. I owe you one._

 _Don’t fuck my brother after dinner tonight and we’re even,_ Harold has said.

Frantically, I message him back. _What the fuck makes you think that?_

_I have eyes, Alexander._

* * *

“Alexander! I’m so glad you could make it!” Hazel says, throwing herself at me. “You’re _late_.”

“I know,” I say, hugging her back. “Where’s our table?”

She takes my arm and leads me over to the table. “Here they are!”

“Alright?” Harold asks, nodding to George.

He nods in reply and sits down in the chair beside Harold, twisting the yellow silicone with dexterous fingers. Bertie smiles gently at me. “Arcady, word has it that you’re becoming quite the sensation at Weston and Deepdean.”

“Lord, not that,” I say, laughing and leaning back in my chair. “All the rubbish about… what is it?”

“You having a drunken night with hot prom royalty?” Daisy suggests with a laugh in her voice, and an assessing look to accompany it that I cannot decipher.

_Does she know?_

Harold barks a laugh. “Nonsense!” he cries. “What did you do on the night of prom?”

“Stumble back to George’s,” I reply with a smile, only just realising how it sounds.

“He passed out in my bed. I ended up on the couch,” George adds. “Your prom was a disaster, right?” This is said with a nod to Harold.

“Right. Allow me to tell you a story of misery and suffering,” he says in a dramatic voice.

George elbows me. “Look at Hazel.”

* * *

**HAZEL**

I’m staring at Daisy. She’s looking at Harold, eyes wide as she listens to his story. I can tell that she really likes Harold — I’ve always been able to tell when she’s very partial to someone — from the way that she twinkles at him, her eyes bright and her entire posture improper and engaged. She acts that way with very few people: Bertie, Uncle Felix, her father, Harold, George, Beanie, Kitty, and sometimes Alexander and Lavinia.

Then there’s how she looks at me.

Even when she is furious with me, Daisy looks at me like I am… a solution. An idea that she has just come up with, the answer to all her problems. It is not an engaged look, more of a tired and comfortable look, as if she could curl up against me and sleep forever. If she ever fights with someone, I can go up to her and set a hand on her shoulder and all her muscles relax under my hand as if I am magical.

I’m not sure what makes me different, but it cannot be what I think.

“Halfway through the night, Bly decided to kill the mood and bring up solipsism, which is the belief that everything around you is your imagination,” Harold said, one elbow on the table as he gestured theatrically.

“That does sound like Bly,” George says with an eye roll. “Ruining everything in some way.”

“Somebody’s bitter,” Bertie notes, grinning at him.

“I hate Bly!”

“If everything around me is made up,” Daisy says in a thoughtful tone, “then Hazel is the best thing that I’ve come up with.”


	5. Chapter 5

**DAISY**

Why the fuck did I say that?

In all honesty, I don’t regret saying that Hazel is the _best thing I have come up with_. However, I do regret making it loud enough to be heard across the table. In the middle of a gesture, Hazel freezes and almost drops the glass she is holding, her dark eyes fixed on me and wine-wet lips parted with shock. Bertie chokes on his mouthful of wine, covering his mouth with his hand to stop it dripping onto his white shirt, while Harold sets his glass on the table so sharply that I am sure I hear a crack. Across the table, Alexander sharply withdraws his hand from where it was outstretched across the table as he explained something, while George kicks me _rather hard_ in the shin and shoots me a look with raised eyebrows and an alarmed parting of his dark lips that speaks of words that I should not have laced with so much meaning and implication. 

“Well,” comes my brother’s rather startled voice, worn from an odd sort of disuse, “starters?”

Harold and Alexander both start laughing. This prompts Bertie to break out laughing too, and even Hazel follows suit.

My eyes flit over to George. Despite the laughter surrounding us, George Mukherjee is oddly still. His lips are still parted slightly and his eyes are focused on something in the far distance in his thousand-yard stare.

“George, are you alright?” Harold asks, leaning over to his brother. “What’s wrong?”

He waves his brother away with a dismissive hand. “I’m fine, H. I’m only thinking.”

When everybody has looked away to debate whether or not the person who wrote the menu was on crack (as it says a burger with added bacon is vegetarian), George looks at me.

“You like her, don’t you?” he asks in a whisper.

“I don’t know.”

“Deduce it, Daisy. How did you figure out that I have a crush?”

I close my eyes, recalling my notebook, my deductions, my conclusion.

**Reasons that George has a crush on Alexander:**

  * **He compliments Alexander often.**



That was when I began the list. We had just walked into drama and Alexander tapped George’s shoulder. After a moment of consideration, George delivered the seemingly off-hand line, “Nice shirt, Arcady.”

“Thanks, George. Now, come on, we have a stage to set up.”

The two of them walked off (George with a deeply assessing look cast playfully in my direction) and I retreated to the corner to sit with my group. Amina El Maghrabi greeted me graciously, offering me a seat beside her. I smiled and turned into their conversation, only to find that it was about Alexander.

“God, he looks _hot_ today!” Jose Pritchett said.

With a breathy gasp, Clementine added, “Oh, _doesn’t_ he? Especially his shirt, how _tight_ it is!”

I paused, considered.

Perhaps that was why George had delivered such an innocuous compliment after careful consideration: he was hiding Clementine’s observation inside a neutral phrase.

Not an hour later, Hazel caught me during break. “Daisy!” she said with a grin. “I missed you this morning, the traffic was awful.”

I looked her up and down, noticing how… complementary her clothes are.

Clementine compliments Amina’s clothes all the time, tells her how sexy she looks. It’s only natural to think, to say. But I don’t want to say it aloud. It feels… wrong.

“You look lovely, Hazel. I like your skirt.”

She grins, clearly shocked by my compliment. “Thanks, Daisy. Now, come on, we have a teacher to investigate.”

  * **He notices the little things about Alexander.**



Only the following day, I met up with all of the Detective Society and the Junior Pinkertons during our free period (which was first) to discuss the case we were investigating.

“Kitty, your mascara is awkward,” I told her when she walked in.

With a laugh, she said, “I know, it ran out this morning.”

Alexander walked in behind her, smiling at Kitty and saying, “Nice lipstick, Kitty! It looks lovely.”

Trust him to find the good in everybody.

George and Hazel walked in, the former instantly making a beeline for Alexander and ruffling his golden hair. “You got a haircut.”

“You noticed?” he asked, looking surprised and slightly pink.

“Of course.” Hurriedly, George sat down.

Hazel, meanwhile, had walked over to behind me and leant over me, her head in front of mine and her hair hanging down and brushing the table. “Daisy!” she said, her enormous grin almost blinding me. “Hi!”

I smiled back at her. “You’ve got a new necklace.”

“I do!” she put a hand over it where it was hanging down and brushing the top of my head. “You noticed?”

“Of course.”

  * **He often starts the conversation.**



Alexander was in one of his low, nervous moods.

His leg rocketed up and down under the table and his every other word was stammered and mangled beyond recognition.

“I— well— you see, it’s really— I— I— I— I’m fi—”

George walked over. As it was a first-period drama lesson (the sort that makes me want to jump off a cliff as nobody is functional during the first period), everybody was half asleep and the two of them hadn’t seen each other yet that day. He set his hands on Alexander’s shoulders from behind and said, “Hey, Alex. How are you?”

“I— well— fuck— it’s—”

With a sigh and an almost fond look, George glanced about to check for people looking at the scene. When he realised that it was only me, he went back to Alexander, running his hand through the blond’s hair and said, “I’m guessing that you’re not alright.”

“N—no.”

“Right.” Sighing heavily, George said, “Want me to talk to you?”

“Yes.”

“Alright. Well, last night…”

Later that day, I rushed up to a seemingly panicked Hazel and said to her, “I have a lead!”

The fright and panic and worry dropped from her features and she said, “Can I follow it with you?”

“Naturally.” I looped my arm through hers and off we went.

I could no longer think of exact points.

All I knew was that I fitted every point on the list.

  * He initiates hanging out.
  * I catch him looking at Alexander at weird times.
  * He asks about Alexander’s family.
  * He asks deeps questions.
  * He makes jokes about dating Alexander.
  * He talks about Alexander to other mutual friends. 
  * You catch them looking at you at strange times.
  * He’s very hands-on with Alexander.
  * They always wind up alone together. 
  * He pays extra attention when Alexander is talking while in a group setting.
  * He smiles more around Alexander.
  * He sticks by Alexander’s side in a group setting.
  * He discusses his future with Alexander.
  * He confides in Alexander more than he confides in anyone else.
  * He does his best to look nice around Alexander.
  * People Alexander has never met know about him from what George has said.
  * George has seen every side of Alexander.
  * He attempts to make Alexander jealous.
  * He makes subtle moves.



Fuck.

_I should not have said that._

_Hazel knows now._

_She didn’t react how she was supposed to._

_Nothing is going right._

A crawling sort of feeling makes it way up the back of my neck, pricking and stinging and aching, and I reach back to yank on my own hair where the horrid feeling is, desperate to get it out.

The crawling feeling proceeds the creeping flushed of dread I get before things become _too much_.

“Daisy, what are you doing?” Bertie asks. “Are you alright?”

I continue to tug on the hair at the nape of my neck, resting my elbows on the table so it’s less noticeable to the patrons around us.

“I’m fine.”

Alexander pauses from where he is reaching for Hazel’s napkin to add to his collection of origami napkin swans, a nervous habit that I am all too used to. “Daisy,” he says with the tone he implores around George, “what’s wrong?”

A cold flush seeps up my spine and I say, “Give me a moment,” getting to my feet and rushing from the restaurant.

* * *

The shock of the London air is what I need. There’s a railing partitioning the pavement from the road and I lean against it.

There is something about cool air that calms me, soothes me, wraps around my mind and fills me up. It pushes everything into the back of my mind and forces me to think objectively.

_I just sort of confessed to Hazel._

_The best thing I’ve come up with._

_Why did they all react that way?_

_Did I blush?_

_Did Hazel?_

“Detectives aren’t immune from the cold, Daisy.” I feel something warm cover my shoulders and turn to see Hazel letting go of my coat and smiling. “Are you alright?”

“I needed to breathe.”

“I’ll breathe with you.”

She leans on the railing beside me, mirroring me by resting her forearms on the cool metal.

I do not notice her slide m closer to mine but I feel the pressure as her body makes contact with mine. Our elbows bump together, and her boot brushes against my bare ankle. Her hand brushes the back of my neck, and soon her arm is around my shoulders and she is warm, solid, against me. 

“I need to breathe,” I tell her again.

“You’re breathing just fine, Daisy. You’ve never had an issue with it before so why should there be one now?”

There is humour in her voice and I want to choke it off.

“Shut up.”

She withdraws sharply, her hands awkwardly tangling together in front of her over the railing. I reach forward to catch one of her hands with my own. “Stop moving.”

Still fidgeting, she flexes her hand within mine, shifts on her feet, and moves the other in and out of her pocket. She gets like this, mad and scattered and frantic and fluttery.

“Stop moving!”

I grab her shoulder and turn her towards me. We are inches apart and I can feel her breath on my face, and it crystalises in the air between us as she stares up at me.

“Daisy?”

I lean down and I kiss her. “Hazel…” I breathe before our lips meet.

When she doesn’t move, I sling my arms around her neck and close the gap.

It’s warm.

Warmth is all I can gather from the kiss.

“I have to leave.” She leans back and reaches a hand up to my cheek. “My father wants me home to look after my sisters.”

There is a look in her eyes of something she is not saying. I lean down to kiss her again, my hands moving to her hips. “Call me when you get home.”


End file.
